Are You Hurting Your Relationships?

There are all kinds of different relationships, from your oldest friendships to colleagues at work to family connections and your intimate partner relationship(s). As to be expected, we are not the same across all relationships in our life.

There are two types of relationship approaches that may have vastly different results on the participating parties. An exchange relationship is when reciprocity and equity are the primary focus. Fairness is expected by both parties and if the distribution within the relationship does not seem equal, both individuals will feel unsatisfied.

For example, let’s say you and a work colleague are working on a project together. You have been putting in long hours on this project and feel your coworker has not been doing their fair share. In an exchange relationship the person doing more work may feel slighted while the colleague could feel left out.

Another example is an intimate couple in which one partner covers more of the finances than the other partner. This partner may feel pressure and resentment for needing to be the primary financier for the couple, while the other individual may feel their contributions to the relationships will never stack up.

In a communal relationship, the partners do not keep score. They couple knows that things will be uneven from time to time but overall everything will balance out.

An example of this could be a duo from work that is assigned a project together. One person may do more of the research and the other decides to do the presenting. More time may have been needed to put the project together, but having to present in front of peers may be a daunting task for one of the colleagues. In this example, each of the coworkers are grateful for the other despite the amount of time that goes into the assignment.

Another example could be a couple in which one person makes more money than their partner. The other individual, however, keeps the household budget and manages all of the bills and finances. In this way, both partners are contributing to the relationship and feel gratitude towards the other person.

Individuals in communal relationships are not completely unconcerned with fairness and equity in their relationship. They tend to believe over the course of time both parties feel balanced and the relationship is reciprocal. The closer and more intimate a relationship is, be it platonic or romantic, the more communal the relationship becomes.

Another example provided by Aronson and Aronson from their book The Social Animal, they write:

“A friend of mine once met a new acquaintance for dinner, had a wonderful time, and thought to himself that this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. “When the bill came I began to reach for my wallet, planning to pick up the check, thinking, ‘We’re good friends now, he’ll pick up the check next time we meet,’” my friend told me. “‘But then he starts going over the bill, calculating down to the penny what each of us owed, noting that I had ordered a more expensive drink and that I ate more sushi than he did, and so I owed more than half. It completely ruined the feelings I had for him.’” Someone who counts every little thing they give and every little thing they get back is telling the other person that they want an exchange relationship rather than a communal one.”

Exchange relationships may be unsatisfying to both parties in the long run. If some of these examples sound familiar, it may be time to assess the themes within your own relationships. What kind of relationships do you want for yourself?